The Ugly Duckling
by NimbusSeeker70
Summary: Neville Longbottom always felt an Ugly Duckling. He wasn't attractive, he wasn't funny, he wasn't smart. He really wasn't much of anything. But when Neville finally becomes the person he was meant to be, he never forgets the time when he was the Ugly Duckling of Hogwarts. Written for Round 6 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition for our seeker who went missing.


**Hi everyone! Please do NOT judge my writing ability based on this story. I literally had to type it up in a half hour to submit for Round 6 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition because our Seeker disappeared and never turned in her story. The deadline is in like, twenty minutes. Sorry if this is poorly written! I tried my best with the very limited notice that I had. **

**My prompt was to write a fairy tale re-telling, so I took the approach of portraying Neville in his younger years as the Ugly Duckling who then blossoms into a wonderful person with more confidence. There's a lot of symbolism so bear with me.**

**Team: Tutshill Tornadoes**

**Position Captain filling in for Seeker**

**Prompts: Fairy Tale Retelling**

Once upon a time, there was a boy called Neville Longbottom. For all his life, Neville had never felt quite as good as everyone else. He grew up without a real mother or father, living with his grandmother for his entire life and frequently being criticized by his extended family.

"When are you going to start showing that you're a bloody wizard?" his aunts and uncles would ask. "Honestly, sometimes I barely even remember that you're Alice and Frank's son!"

Things were no better once Neville got to Hogwarts. Although his family was proud that he really was magical and not a squib, they were still doubtful that he would ever be as good as his mother and father, and the students at school made him feel even worse about his lack of abilities.

"Longbottom, you can't do anything!" Malfoy would tell him. At first, he only did it when nobody was watching, but after a while, Malfoy and his gang began to call out Neville whenever he messed up in class. "Is there anything you can actually do, Longbottom, or are you as hopeless as we all think you are?"

Even the professors were cruel and mean to Neville, especially Professor Severus Snape. "Longbottom, the task was to create a freezing solution, not a melting solution."

"Looks like somebody needs to buy another new cauldron," Malfoy hissed in his ear after Snape had left, still tut-tutting about Neville's failed freezing solution.

He truly didn't know how on Earth he ended up in Gryffindor. He wasn't smart and clever, like Hermione. He wasn't brave like Harry. He wasn't funny like Ron. He wasn't attractive like Lavender Brown and Romilda Vane, both of whom seemed to use their looks to get what they wanted from their friends.

Neville was simply himself, and he always felt quite pathetic. He felt useless, hopeless, like an ugly duckling who never truly belonged.

For a very long time, right about five years, Neville walked the halls of Hogwarts by himself. He ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner relatively alone. He did his homework in a solitary corner of the library or the common room. In class, he would work by himself whenever possible. Merlin knows he didn't want to burden anybody else with his idiocy.

Then, in his fifth year, things started to change. Professor Umbridge had taken over the school and was acting as though it was a country and she was its dictator. She ripped down the paintings, kicked Harry off the quidditch team, started the oppressive Inquisitorial Squad, and just downright destroyed life at Hogwarts.

And for the first time in his life, Neville truly felt the need to step in and help get rid of this evil woman and her reign over the school.

That opportunity came for Neville in the form of Dumbledore's Army.

"Say, Neville," Harry said one afternoon at lunch. Very rarely did anyone directly address him, so Neville was surprised at being spoken to.

"Hmm?" Neville asked, surprised.

Harry glanced around as if to make sure nobody but Ron and Hermione were listening. He leaned forward and said quietly, "During the next Hogsmeade trip, we're having a little meeting at the Hog's Head." He gestured to Ron and Hermione. "We're getting annoyed by Umbridge and we've decided that all of this magic-less practice is pointless if Voldemort-"

Neville flinched.

"Sorry, if You Know Who is going to make a move, just knowing a spell isn't going to help."

"We need to know how to use it," Hermione piped in.

Neville swallowed. "Well that's nice Harry, but I don't really understand why you're telling me about this..."

Ron snorted. "We want you to come, mate," he said, rolling his eyes. "Why else would we tell you?"

Neville stared at the trio in disbelief. "You want me to come to your meeting?"

They all nodded enthusiastically.

"Why?" Neville asked, completely dumbfounded. "I can't do anything, you know that!"

"Oh, stop it Neville," Hermione said, waving her hand dismissively. "Nobody can be bad at _everything_."

"Real comforting, Hermione," Ron muttered.

"Oh, shut up Ron."

And that was how Neville found himself sitting with a rather large group of people in the Hog's Head during the next Hogsmeade trip. It was the first meeting of a group that would change Neville's life forever.

They all signed a piece of paper promising never to tell anyone about the meetings, and they began gathering whenever possible in the Room of Requirement.

To Neville's surprise, it seemed that Hermione had been right. Nobody can be bad at everything. In fact, Neville was actually quite good at figuring out the Room of Requirement, something the others congratulated him on often.

At the end of the year, when Harry went to the Ministry of Magic and fought You Know Who, Neville was there. During his seventh year, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione disappeared to hunt horcruxes, Neville was there.

And at the final battle, where You Know Who was defeated and the Death Eaters were destroyed, Neville was there, and he was the one who cut off the head of the great snake Naigini.

All of a sudden, everybody wanted to be his friend. Girls bat their eyelashes at him and giggled when he was around. Boys wanted to slap him on the back and become friends with him. Adults congratulated him on his accomplishments, awestruck by how he had turned out.

But Neville never really developed close relations with anyone after the war, because the people he truly needed were already all around him.

He had Harry, who had thought to include him when nobody else did.

He had Ron, who had tolerated him and not made fun of him during DA meetings.

He had Hermione, who had spent so much of her time helping him with schoolwork and assisting him at Dumbledore's Army meetings.

He had Ginny, who had stood by his side while Harry was gone, despite the terrible pain she was in not knowing where her brother or boyfriend were.

And finally, he had Luna, who had also overcome bullying during school and turned out to be an amazing young woman, who, like Neville, everybody suddenly wanted to be friends with.

But for Neville, it would never matter how pretty a girl was, or how popular a boy was. He would be friends with the people who'd liked him for who he was, way back when he was nobody.

His friends would always be the ones who were there for him when he was the Ugly Duckling.


End file.
